
VALE DOWNIE 











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ALL DAY TOM AND MARCUS WORKED OVER THE 


CHRISTMAS TREE 


ROBIN 

THE BOBBIN 

BY 

VALE DOWNIE 

ii 

ILLUSTRATED / 



HARPER & BROTHERS 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 







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ton 

*<p 


Robin the Bobbin 

Copyright, 1914. 1915. by Harper & Brothers 
Printed in the United States of America 
Published September, 1915 

H-P 


SEP 25 1915 

© Cl. A 4 1 1 6 9 9 

Km 1 ___ 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


All Day Tom and Marcus Worked Over the 

Christmas Tree 

He Drank in the Great Man’s Elucidations 
\vith Rapt Attention 


Frontispiece 

Facing p . 28 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 

CHAPTER I 

T OM BUNTING’S ears were cold. It 
was the comforting belief of the Pro- 
fessor, frequently expressed, that when your 
ears get cold easily it is a sign that you are 
going to be a piano-tuner some day. The 
Professor would have been hard put to it, 
no doubt, to show grounds for the faith that 
was in him, but the idea was mildly consoling 
to the boy. Piano-tuning, as everybody 
knows, requires a very special sort of ear. 
The Professor averred that he had suffered 
from cold ears for twenty-five years and, of 
late, he never went out (after the first of 
l 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 

September and before the end of April) with- 
out his black velvet ear-muffs. There was 
some comfort in reflecting that it was the 
common lot of genius. 

But this morning was especially chill, and 
a nipping wind came frolicking down Van 
Cleve Avenue, swirling the light snow in the 
sparkling morning sunshine, and threatening, 
at times, to pick up Tom, the Professor, the 
dog-cart, and the donkey, and roll them 
bodily back into Hollowed, whence they had 
just come. Tom had to hold on to the reins 
with both hands, and while he was doing that 
the snow got into his eyes and down his back 
and everywhere it oughtn’t to have been. 
The Professor, who wore large black goggles 
and could hardly distinguish between night 
and day, sat bolt upright and offered much 
occasional philosophic comment and en- 
couragement. 

Pony-carts, of course, were never intended 
for arctic travel. The one which carried 
Professor Gilikin and Tom Bunting was so 
very small, and Hank Honk, the donkey 
2 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


(his name was a pleasing combination of ap- 
pellative and warning signal, invented by 
Tom), was so extremely ditto, that there 
was a grave danger of the outfit going en- 
tirely out of sight among the deep drifts at 
the crossings. If it had not been for the 
driver’s lusty encouragement and efficient 
handling of the whip-stub, at critical mo- 
ments, there is no telling what might have 
happened. The cart was carried on two 
rubber-tired wheels about the size of barrel- 
hoops, and Professor Gilikin’s legs were so 
doubled up that the little square leather case 
which he carried on his knees almost touched 
his chin. 

“What, ho!” exclaimed the Professor, sud- 
denly. A particularly heavy gust had almost 
stopped their forward progress. “That was 
a good one, wasn’t it? A regular nor’- 
wester. I calculate we must be blown about 
a hundred leagues out of our course. Cap- 
tain Bunting. Better send the bo’s’n to 
the mast-head to see if we are in sight of 

land.” 

2 


3 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


“Ay, ay, sir,” cheerily responded “Captain 
Bunting.” 

“What does the lubber report?” 

“Land on the port bow, sir.” 

“Coast of Labrador?” 

“No; Van Cleve Avenue.” 

“ Right, oh ! Tell the bo’s’n to come down 
out of that before he catches his death of 
cold. By the way, there are lots of fine 
residences hereabouts, aren’t there?” 

“Scads of them. Gee! but my ears — ” 

“You ought to be thankful they’re not as 
large as Hank Honk’s, at least,” cut in the 
Professor. Hereupon Hank Honk flourished 
one of the members under discussion quite as 
though he had overheard the remark, and 
Tom, in spite of his chill misery, laughed 
aloud. The boy had to explain. Meanwhile 
Hank Honk, hearing the driver’s loud “Ho, 
ho ! 9 9 and deeming that it sounded remarkably 
like “Whoa, whoa ! 99 had come to a stand-still. 

“Git ap!” cried Tom, reaching for the gad. 
“ What d’you s’pose he stopped here for?” 

“I dun’no’,” replied the Professor, “but 

4 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 

I expect he had his reasons. Let him alone. 
I tell you. Tommy, Hank Honk’s a mighty 
intelligent little donkey. Look around and 
tell me what sort of a house you see on the 
stabbord bow.” 

“A big red-brick with shiny, plate-glass 
windows and a great big verander. It’s a 
regular palace.” 

“Any kids in sight? Kids are mighty hard 
on pianos.” 

“Nope. I don’t see any.” 

“What sort of a place do you see on the 
left?” 

“Big stone house, back a ways from the 
street. There’s an iron fence in front and 
lots of pine-trees around, all covered with 
snow. Nobody’s been out this morning, for 
the snow ain’t shoveled; but there’s smoke 
coming out of the big chimbly at the end, so 
I s’pose somebody must live there.” 

“It doesn’t sound very promising, Tommy, 
my lad, as you tell it. I guess we’d better 
have a shy at the red-brick mansion. Go and 
see what you can make of it.” 

5 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


The youthful driver turned over his lines 
to the man, climbed out of the cart, and ran 
up the steps of the “big verander.” A maid 
in cap and apron answered his ring. She wore 
pendants in her ears, and she drew in her 
lips as she looked Thomas, over, in a way 
that was not at all encouraging. 

“If you please,” said Tom, pulling off his 
cap, “we’ve come about the piano.” 

“What piano?” 

“Yours. We’ve come to tune it.” 

“Ho! you have, have you? Well, how 
much tuning do you think that piano takes? 
You’re in the wrong pew, kid. Back up!” 

The maid slammed the door, and Tom 
put on his cap and turned away. Of course, 
on cold days like this, people couldn’t be 
expected to stand and hold their front doors 
open, chilling the whole house and running 
up coal bills higher and higher with every 
wintry gust; still, she needn’t have been so 
grumpy about it. He made his way sadly 
back to the cart. His companion heard the 

door slam, and did not need to be told that 
6 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 

the red-brick mansion had failed'to “fall for” 
Tommy’s ruse. Ah well, one couldn’t hope 
to make a ten-strike every time. In about 
one case out of twenty the house-owner 
would really have sent for a tuner within the 
month, or would think he had, and Professor 
Gilikin and his young assistant would get 
the job. The red-brick house didn’t happen 
to be the twentieth instance, that was all. 

“She was real sassy, wasn’t she?” said the 
Professor. 

“Turned me down hard,”/* admitted the 
boy. 

“Well, since you’re out, run into the house 
on the other side of the street and see what 
they have to say there.” 

“They don’t look very good to me, but 
I’ll try ’em,” said Tom, and turned toward 
the old stone mansion. He struggled through 
the drifts to the front door, a queer, old, blis- 
tered, square-paneled affair, with ’ a white 
door-knob in the middle and a generally 
cracked and weather-beaten appearance that 
was far from promising either lavish gene- 
7 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


rosity or careless disregard of expense. Find- 
ing no push-button, Thomas pulled the door- 
knob and thought he detected a tinkling 
sound far away in the interior. 

He kicked his toes against the worn step 
and waited. 

It is not amiss to remark that the piano- 
tuning business had lately undergone a de- 
cided slump. Either pianos were staying in 
tune for distressingly long periods, or the ears 
of musical people were becoming scandalously 
incompetent to detect the growing discord. 
Of course, business conditions generally were 
not good, and with many players it was a 
matter of economy. Some, no doubt, were 
simply too stingy to have their instruments 
put in shape, like the old skinflint in Hol- 
lowell Street whose piano they had tuned the 
day before. Upon learning that Professor 
Gilikin charged a dollar an hour, and only for 
the time required to do his work, the old 
fellow had marked off the middle octaves on 
the keyboard with a blue pencil and in- 
structed the Professor to tune only so many 
8 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


strings. The rest of the piano, he said, 
wasn’t used much and he couldn’t spend 
money to have strings tuned which nobody 
would want to play on, anyhow. That was 
the sort of people they had to deal with 
lately. It was discouraging. Especially when 
you reflected on the dire necessity which 
faced Tom, the Professor, and Hank Honk 
at this particular moment, with Christmas 
only four days off and three vitally important 
Christmas presents to buy. Since nobody 
has yet troubled to answer Tom’s pull at 
the bell, there is ample time to explain that 
these three presents were to come as three 
prodigious surprises; but it may be sur- 
mised that Hank Honk was the only one who 
was likely to be profoundly shaken with 
astonishment, in view of the amount of dis- 
cussion that had gone on lately, of evenings, 
in Professor Gilikin’s kitchen (which was also 
dining-room, living-room, and parlor, the 
other room being reserved for a sleeping- 
apartment for Tom and the Professor). And 
when it is learned that Hank Honk’s stable — 
9 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


built of two piano-boxes and a piece of cor- 
rugated iron — was scarcely eight feet distant 
in a direct line from the kitchen door, and 
conversation carried on in the house was 
distinctly audible in the alley beyond, it 
may be seriously questioned whether even 
he was likely to be greatly surprised on 
Christmas morning. • " « 

By spending a half-hour almost any frosty 
evening in the shadow of the piano-box stable 
— one conspicuous advantage of owning a 
steed the size of Hank Honk is that you can 
make a shelter for him out of a piano-box 
(obtainable gratis from the dealer from whom 
you buy your strings, piano repairs, and so 
forth) — a painstaking eavesdropper would 
have ascertained that Master Thomas Bunt- 
ing had long felt the want of a fur cap with 
a brim that turned down all around over 
one’s ears. Tom’s ears were admittedly 
large — only a size or so smaller than Hank 
Honk’s — and they were always cold. The 
Professor had rather set his heart on a pair 
of fleece-lined gloves. A piano-tuner cannot 
10 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


well afford to have his fingers frozen. As 
for the donkey, the consensus of opinion 
seemed to be that a woolen blanket, with 
straps and buckles to fasten under his body, 
woidd about reach the spot. Although he 
was game enough not to complain, there 
wasn’t a doubt that he found the long waits 
in the streets, while the Professor labored over 
decayed pianofortes, pretty frigid business. 

But fur caps, gloves, and blankets all take 
money to buy, unfortunately; and if every- 
body in town of a sudden makes up his mind 
to go on living with a jangling, untuned 
piano, rather than expend a petty two dollars 
to have it overhauled, where are you? And 
a mighty cold winter at that — the coldest in 
twenty years, said the weather-man in the 
newspaper. <■ 

Tom kicked the stone step once more and 
gave the white knob another determined 
pull. It is a wonder he didn’t pull it clean 
out of its socket. Indeed, he was a little 
frightened at his own violence, which had 
resulted from the desperate consciousness 
U 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 

that the fur cap, the fleece-lined gloves, and 
the blanket were slipping rapidly beyond 
reach, and he was of two minds whether to 
cut and run or to face the music. The irate 
owner would now want to know, doubtless, 
what he meant by trying to pull the bell out 
by its roots in that violent manner, and Tom 
was very distrustful of his ability to offer 
an adequate explanation. The thought that 
all the hopes of the Professor and Hank 
Honk were fixed upon him gave him a sort 
of desperate courage, however, and he deter- 
mined to stand his ground. Presently he 
heard a step within, and the door opened. 

The old gentleman who appeared in the 
doorway was very tall, slightly stooped, and 
very solemn. He wore a long, tattered 
dressing-gown of quilted silk and a pair of 
carpet slippers. His hair was thick and white 
as snow, and his eyebrows were white and 
bushy — and rather frightful, until you caught 
a glimpse of the eyes beneath them. His nose 
was large and a little red — it looked as though 
it might be cold. It was the solemn set of 
12 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


his mouth, which was unobscured by mus- 
tache or beard, that disconcerted Tom. He 
did have a terribly heavy jaw. 

Of course. Tommy was some time in no- 
ticing all these details, and it was a very 
uncomfortable time at that. He could not 
remember just what it was he had meant 
to say; and, if he could have remembered, 
he knew in advance that it would have been 
the wrong thing. He wished devoutly that 
Hank Honk had stopped in front of some 
other house. 

“Good morning,” said the old gentleman, 
at length. 

“If you please,” said Tom, mechanically, 
covering one of his ears with a mittened 
hand, “we’ve come about the piano.” 

“Piano?” 

“Yes; we’ve come to tune it.” 

The old gentleman took a small black case 
out of a pocket of his dressing-gown and 
put a pair of gold-mounted glasses on his 
nose. He regarded Tom gravely. 

“To tune it?” 


13 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 

“Yes. We — we understood that it was 
out of kelter.” 

“That is odd/’ said the old man, slowly. 
He took off his glasses and polished them 
with a silk handkerchief which he took out of 
another pocket. “Very strange, indeed. Are 
you sure you have the right address? My 
name is Fraser — John Fraser. Is that right?” 

“Yes, sir,” affirmed the efficient emissary 
of Professor Gilikin. “That’s the name.” 

“And you have come to tune the piano? 
That is the most curious thing I ever heard 
of. But come in. Come in.” 

Tom entered a wide, high-ceilinged hall. 
Mr. Fraser’s white hair brushed the pendants 
of a great chandelier that hung at the foot of 
a wide oak staircase as he led the way into 
a room at the left. 

The hall was cold — colder even than the 
outdoor air, which was permeated at least 
by the brilliant sunshine; but there was a 
fire in the room they now entered. Tom saw 
it sparkling merrily in a big fireplace at the 
end — and here the atmosphere was more 
U 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 

comfortable. Such a room it was! At any 
other time Tom would have been entranced. 
Another glass chandelier, three times as big 
as the one in the hall, hung from the ceiling, 
and the firelight was reflected from the facets 
of hundreds of glass pendants. The inside 
wall was lined with bookcases full of books 
of all sizes, from ponderous leather-backed 
tomes, in the bottom shelves, to little pocket- 
sized volumes near the ceiling. They weren’t 
in very good order, being stacked in all 
sorts of positions; on their sides, on their 
backs, and on their corners, and it was a 
great wonder that two or three dozen of them 
did not topple over into the room every time 
the door slammed. It is possible, of course, 
that the doors in this house never slammed; 
they were so big and heavy and their hinges 
were so rusty that it was quite likely the 
thing hadn’t occurred in years. Over the 
fireplace was a beautiful engraving of a trac- 
tion-engine followed by a log train of pro- 
digious length. It was, in fact, a prodigious 
engine. There were two or three other pic- 
15 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


tures of similar character on the walls and 
some framed blue-prints more or less faded. 
But it was not the books or the pictures that 
entranced Tommy — it was the little engines. 
There were dozens of them, of all sorts — 
diminutive traction-locomotives, stationary 
engines with boilers, air-compressors, dyna- 
mos, little steam-hammers about large enough 
to forge fish-hooks, fire-engines, marine- 
engines, and a lot that nobody but a mechan- 
ical engineer could call by their proper names. 
They were made of all sorts of material — 
iron, wood, aluminum, and brass — and some 
were polished and varnished until they shone 
most merrily. No toy-shop ever contained 
a display half so gorgeous. They stood on 
the corners of the big table, in the center, on 
the three wide window-sills, on the mantel, 
and on the floor. Mr. Fraser stepped over 
two steam-pumps and some sort of a dredge, 
or power-shovel, in making his way to the 
fire. He motioned the enraptured Tom to 
a chair at the corner of the hearth and seated 
himself opposite. 


16 


CHAPTER II 


“'\7"0U say you have come to tune my 
1 piano?” 

“Oh yes,” said Tom, who had completely 
forgotten his business in the house. 

Mr. Fraser folded his hands upon his knees 
and gave the proposition grave attention. 

“It is curious,” he said, after a few mo- 
ments’ reflection, “but do you know that I 
wasn’t aware until this moment that I owned 
a piano? Still, it’s perfectly possible. You 
see, I bought this house and the furniture 
contained in it about ten years ago, upon the 
advice of my lawyers, who found it could be 
had at a bargain and thought it would be 
just the place for me. Never having had 
occasion to use more than two or three rooms, 
I don’t really know what there is in it. 
It’s quite possible that a dozen pianos may 
17 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


be stuck around in dark corners. Will you 
have the goodness to pull that bell-cord ?” 

Tom observed a queer, tasseled rope hang- 
ing from the wall between two bookcases, 
and gave it a jerk. Pending a response to 
this signal, Mr. Fraser took occasion to 
learn the name of his visitor, and made 
more inquiries as to the length of time he had 
been in the piano-tuning business. This 
evoked the confession that it was the Pro- 
fessor who did the actual work. Tom gave 
some account, also, of the merits of Hank 
Honk as a means of locomotion, and they 
were on the point of going to the window to 
view the equipage when an old negro, wearing 
a black skull-cap edged with a fuzz of white 
hair, entered and hobbled across the room. 

“Marcus,” said Mr. Fraser, “this is Mr. 
Thomas Bunting, of the firm of Gilikin, 
Bunting & Hank Honk — Piano-tuners.” 

“Yes, suh.” 

“I’m pleased to meet you,” said Tom. 

“ They have come to tune our piano, Mar- 
cus,” added the old gentleman. 

18 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 

“Yes, suh.” 

“ Have we a piano, Marcus?” 

“I don’t know, suh. We just might have 
one. A body couldn’t tell without looking, 
suh.” 

“It would appear to me, Marcus,” said 
Mr. Fraser, sternly, “that a fellow who had 
been taking care of an establishment for 
three years ought to know what furniture it 
contains.” 

“Yes, suh. He oughtta, suh. But we 
’ain’t never had much call to open up them 
palilahs, suh.” 

“True enough; but we’ll have to open 
them now. Come along.” 

Mr. Fraser led the way across the hall 
to the door at the foot of the staircase. The 
lock creaked as he turned the knob, and the 
door stuck as though sealed for all time in 
its frame; but it yielded, at length, before 
the impact of the combined weight of three 
determined shoulders — Mr. Fraser’s, Mar- 
cus’s, and Tom’s — and the three explorers 
lurched into the room amid a creaking, jang- 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


ling, and tinkling sound that was almost 
deafening. Thomas, in fact, measured his 
length on the dusty carpet, to the no small 
amusement of Marcus. 

What a dusty room it was! Cold as a 
cistern and musty as a potato-cellar. Over- 
head was another chandelier even larger than 
the one in the library, with twice as many 
shivering, tinkling glass pendants. There 
were rows upon rows of them, all quivering 
and chattering as though with the cold; and 
probably a bucketful of pendants lay scat- 
tered about the floor. Tom felt momentarily 
a base inclination to fill his pockets, for it was 
evident that neither Marcus, who was striv- 
ing to open the hermetically sealed wooden 
shutters in the front windows, nor Mr. 
Fraser, who was poking around among the 
shadowy shapes of furniture with a black- 
thorn cane which he had procured from the 
hall-rack, would notice him. It is pleasant 
to record that he instantly subdued the temp- 
tation. 

The double parlors really formed one im- 
20 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


mense room, divided by two pillars against 
which were looped a pair of heavy and very 
dusty curtains. A number of paintings in 
dingy gilt frames ornamented the walls, and 
Tom had never seen such cobwebs in his life. 
They stretched across corners and depended 
from obscure points in space, defying all 
laws of gravitation and sanitary housekeep- 
ing. They ran from the chimney to the 
chandelier, and covered the big couch before 
the front windows as with a blanket. 

By this time they were all three sneezing 
with the dust, or cold, or both, and Mr. 
Fraser said, “Phew!” loudly, four or five 
times in succession. Marcus at length suc- 
ceeded in opening a window-blind which ad- 
mitted a golden beam of sunlight, and Mr. 
Fraser almost immediately said, “Hah!” and 
pointed with his cane at a square, black shape 
in the farthest corner of the inner room. 

It w as, as a matter of fact, a piano. Tom 
would not have recognized it as such, for a 
great cloth cover hung down to the floor 
on all sides, concealing its three massive 
21 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


pedestals. The owner, however, swept off 
this cover, and, with some difficulty, raised 
the lid, disclosing a row of dirty yellow keys. 

“Do you play, sir?” he inquired, bowing 
Tom to the horse-hair-cushioned stool, which 
he dusted off hurriedly with the tail of his 
dressing-gown. 

“I know ‘ Peter-Peter,’ ” confessed the boy. 

1 “Excellent! Will you not favor us? Mar- 
cus, stop that racket for a few minutes. 
Mr. Bunting is going to play.” 

Tom slid onto the stool, without waiting 
to be further importuned, and struck two or 
three keys with exceptional verve. 

Bang ! 

Tom leaped from the stool in dismay. 
Mr. Fraser clapped his hands to his ears, and 
Marcus made for the door. There was a 
shower of glass pendants from the chandelier 
in the front room and a veritable cataract 
from its twin of the rear parlor. Such a 
discordant, rumbling, crashing, jangling ex- 
plosion certainly was never before let loose 
from any instrument of music. 

22 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


Mr. Fraser laid his hand reassuringly on 
Toni’s shoulder. “You were right,” he said. 
“It is a little out of kelter. A job for the 
Professor.” 

“Tee-hee!” tittered Marcus, who, now 
that his alarm was gone, considered it all 
very funny. “Job for the junk-dealer.” 

“By no means,” said his master, reprov- 
ingly. “That is probably an excellent piano. 
All it needs is a few strings. I dare say it 
has a beautiful tone. Go out and show the 
Professor in, Marcus. Then put his cart in 
the stable. When you have done that, you 
had better dust round here a little and put 
a fire on the hearth. This house is as cold 
as a barn.” 

“Yes, suh. Right away, suh.” 

But the gleeful assistant of Professor Gili- 
kin was already at the front door on his way 
to carry the glad news. That piano wasn’t a 
job — it was a contract. The Professor would 
be a week on it— at a dollar an hour. Gee! 


23 


CHAPTER III 


“ T It THAT, ho ! Captain Bunting ?” 

V V shouted the Professor as Tom 
clanged the iron gate. 

“Ay, ay, sir.” 

“I thought the sharks had got you.” 

“No, indeed.” 

“Well, climb in and we’ll move up the 
avenue before Hank Honk freezes up stiff 
and solid in his tracks.” 

“ But I’ve got a job!” shouted the boy. 

“No!” 

“Yes, sir. An old piano that ’ain’t been 
tuned for ten years. Say, it’s in bee-yutiful 
condition. I’ll bet you’ll be a week on it. 
I tried to play ‘Peter-Peter’ and broke three 
strings. His name’s Fraser — Mr. John Fra- 
ser. My! but I was afraid of him at first!” 

The Professor inferred that this was the 

24 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 

name of the owner of the house, and not of 
the instrument. 

“Fraser — John Fraser — you don’t mean 
Uncle Jack Fraser, of the Fraser Forge and 
Foundry, do you?” 

“Dun’no’. But he’s got a dozen little toy 
engines and machines, with little steam- 
boilers, and pulleys, and belts. Gee! it’s 
great! Hurry and let’s go in.” 

The Professor climbed out of the cart 
with his leather case and his cane, and was 
guided by Tom up to the house. Hank 
Honk, after some moments of protest, suf- 
fered himself to be led to the carriage entrance 
by Marcus and conducted to the stable in 
the rear, where he was made reasonably com- 
fortable. 

The old piano was moved on creaking 
casters out of its corner into the center of 
the room and nearer to the big fireplace, 
where Marcus had started a roaring blaze. 
In ten minutes Professor Gilikin was able to 
give Mr. Fraser an opinion regarding the in- 
strument — which was that it ought to be 

25 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 

entirely restrung, and lie couldn’t say just 
liow long it might take him, probably a cou- 
ple of days. 

No matter; it had to be tuned, and the 
expense for strings was of no consequence. 
Marcus entirely agreed. Having had the 
matter brought to their attention, they real- 
ized at once the impossibility of going on 
without a properly tuned piano in the house. 

So the Professor laid out his tools and went 
to work. Tom helped him to get his bear- 
ings so that he could move about the room 
without upsetting the furniture, and it was 
during their preliminary tour of inspection 
that Gilikin ran into one of the pillars be- 
tween the two parlors. It was a curiously 
carved and fluted affair, and the Professor 
paused and ran his hand up the column as 
high as he could reach. 

“There’s another one over there, just like 
this one, isn’t there?” 

Tom said there was. 

“How many windows in the front?” 

“Three,” 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


“Two big glass chandeliers?” 

“Yes.” 

The Professor knitted his brow and began 
to whistle the “Blue Danube.” It was 
evident that he was trying to remember 
something that eluded him. Presently he 
gave it up and went to work on the piano. 

Tom stuck to the job manfully for perhaps 
an hour. He ran to the music-store in 
Hollo well Street for strings, etc., and when 
he returned he made himself useful to the 
Professor, handing him such tools as he re- 
quired from the mat. After a time his 
assistance was not so necessary and there 
were long intervals during which he was able 
to slip across the hall and investigate the 
little engines. 

Every time he came Mr. Fraser would put 
down his book or paper and smile. He 
rigged up one after another of the machines 
and started the little wheels to turning, ex- 
plaining the while that these seeming toys 
were, in reality, just working models of great 
machines that had been built, or were to be 
27 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


built, in his factory. Tom was an attentive 
listener. He stuck his stub nose into every 
mechanical abstrusity with an enthusiasm 
that pleased Mr. Fraser immensely. 

He asked countless questions, and drank 
in the great man’s elucidations with rapt 
attention. His cheeks were now as red as 
his ears had been, and his eyes were bright 
and blue. His yellow-brown hair somewhat 
resembled that of Mr. Fraser in that it had 
not been too carefully combed. 

At length the old gentleman, having, as he 
said, a very important letter to write, se- 
lected a book from one of the shelves and 
advised Tom to sit down and read in it 
awhile, or look at the pictures*. It required 
no very great perspicacity to discover that 
Mr. Fraser desired a few minutes of com- 
parative silence, and the boy promptly 
curled up on the rug with his book. He was 
thus most comfortably disposed a half-hour 
later when the Professor called wheezily from 
the parlor, and he was obliged to get up 
and answer the summons. 


28 



HE DRANK IN THE GREAT MAN’S ELUCIDATIONS WITH RAPT ATTENTION 






ROBIN THE BOBBIN 

Professor Gilikin, it seemed, had found an 
old letter in the piano. It had evidently been 
laid on the music-rack and had slipped 
through a crack into the interior of the instru- 
ment, where it had lain perhaps for years. 
One thing was clear, it was the property of 
John Fraser, who had bought the house 
and all its contents, which would naturally 
include the contents of the piano, and Tom 
was instructed to carry the find forthwith 
to the library. 

Mr. Fraser examined the finely written 
address with care: 

Miss Kate Marboro, 

Van Cleve Ave., 
Colchester. 

It was postmarked from Akron, Ohio, and 
the date was twelve years old. 

“Marboro — yes, that was the name of the 
family that formerly owned this mansion — 
I wonder if there are any secrets in it. You 
know, Tom, one generally gets into trouble 
by reading other people’s letters. I guess 

we’d better drop it in the fire.” 

29 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 

Mr. Eraser leaned toward the ruddy blaze, 
but Tom excitedly stopped his destroying 
hand. 

“Mebbe we’d better read it first and burn 
it afterward. You know, it might tell about 
some buried doubloons and pieces of eight — 
or somethin’. Old houses often have scads 
of gold and jools buried in the cellar. I’ve 
read about it lots of times. No, sir, I 
wouldn’t burn it.” 

Mr. Fraser had ever an open mind. He 
smiled gently, but presently admitted the 
force of this argument, and, upon the chance 
of getting trace of hidden loot, drew out the 
yellow folded note and read it three times — 
twice to himself and once to Tom. It was 
brief and a bit obscure. It ran: 

Dear Kate, — I have been feeling lately that 
I must see you and father and the old place 
again. I want to sit in the old back parlor and 
play the “Blue Danube” waltz on my piano, as 
I used to do, or watch the logs crackle in the 
fireplace. It’s a fact I haven’t been so homesick 
in fifteen years, and just now, at Christmas-time, 
it’s worse than ever. 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 

Has father mentioned me lately? It surely 
seems To me he ought to take a different view of 
the matter now. Is he going to remember a silly 
nineteen-year-old girl’s slip against her for ever 
and ever? Why, Ramsdell’s been dead almost 
fifteen years, and if I was foolish, which I’m very 
ready to admit I was, surely I’ve paid for my 
folly a hundred times over. 

Does he know that I married again? And have 
you told him about ‘‘Robin the Bobbin”? The 
little rascal’s two years old this month and, 
I think, would greatly enjoy celebrating Christ- 
mas in our ancestral halls, as would a certain 
rather tired mother I know of. 

You know, it’s worrying about what’s to be- 
come of Robin the Bobbin that takes the tucker 
out of me, Katy. Mr. Brown was never strong, 
and the doctor ordered him South in September, 
but he couldn’t afford to go. The worst of it is, 
I’m not as full of the devil as I used to be, my- 
self, and that worries me. I’ve had to give up 
teaching music. 

Kate, you and father just couldn’t help loving 
the Bobbin. See if you can’t get him to invite 
us home for Christmas. 

Lovingly your sister, 

Sara Marboro Brown. 


CHAPTER IV 


M R. FRASER looked at Tom over his 
spectacles. 

“Not a syllable about any buried treas- 
ure,” he commented. “Rather a disap- 
pointing letter, don’t you think so?” 

“Yes, sir. But who do you s’pose was 
Robin the Bobbin?” 

“Probably he was Mrs. Brown’s little boy, 
although she doesn’t exactly say so. It’s a 
queer letter, and old Colonel Marboro must 
have been a queer granddad if he could resist 
the Bobbin. That is my opinion.” 

“And didn’t the lady get to bring her little 
boy home for Christmas?” 

“I’m sure I don’t know; somehow I don’t 
think she did. You didn’t notice any traces 
of molasses taffy between the keys of the 
piano, did you?” 


32 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


“No; but it might have been all washed 
off, you know.” 

“To be sure. Ah, well, I suppose we’ll 
have to let it go at that.” 

Mr. Fraser folded the letter and laid it on 
his table. Tom resumed his book. Presently 
he rolled over on his back and stared at the 
ceiling. Mr. Fraser gazed into the fire for 
a long time. Finally he said, “Hah!” loudly, 
and nodded his head three or four times. 

“Sam Paley, to be sure,” he remarked, 
smiling. 

Tom sat up hurriedly on the rug. “Who 
is Sam Paley?” he inquired, with great in- 
terest. 

“My lawyer. The fellow who sold me 
this house. I always thought that he knew 
more than he ought to know about it. If 
anybody can tell us who Robin the Bobbin 
was, he is the man. I shall telephone him 
instantly.” 

From the tangle of apparatus on the big 
oak table Mr. Fraser, without moving from 
his chair, extracted a desk-telephone and put 
33 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


the receiver to his ear. Mr. Paley was, hap- 
pily, just arrived at his office and would 
come straight out. No doubt he gathered 
from the portentous tone of the manufac- 
turer that some matter of vast moment was 
afoot. At any rate, he was on hand in less 
than twenty minutes, and, being ushered by 
Marcus to a comfortable chair at the right 
of the hearth and formally presented to Tom 
Bunting, who was still on the hearth-rug, 
sitting cross-legged like a Turk, Mr. Fraser 
fixed him with a level and inquisitorial gaze 
and said: 

“Sam, who is, or was, Robin the Bobbin?” 

Mr. Paley was plainly astounded by this 
question; but then he was in a perpetual 
attitude of astonishment, so the manner of 
his reply carried not so much weight with 
Mr. Fraser as with Tom. He combed his 
gray hair in a fashion generally supposed to 
indicate abject fright, and his eyes protruded 
to such an extent that the boy feared he 
might presently be called upon to perform 
the melancholy office of picking them up 
34 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


off the rug for him. He probably weighed 
over two hundred pounds, and he was puffing 
violently from his exertions. He had come 
out on a street-car and had been obliged to 
plow through the snow from the car line, a 
block distant. 

“Blessed-if-I-know,-John ! Blessed-\i-Y-&o” 
said Mr. Paley. He made words out of his 
sentences, and, when he had sufficient breath, 
sentences out of paragraphs. 

“Now, don’t try to mislead the court, 
Sam. You know perfectly well who Robin 
the Bobbin was.” 

“ On-my-honor ! Never-heard-of-him-be- 

fore-in-my-life. What line?” 

“He’s not in business, so far as I know; 
but he is, or was, so to speak, connected with 
the line of Marboro.” 

Mr. Paley sat up, if possible more erect 
than usual, and his eyebrows went up an 
additional quarter of an inch. Tom held 
himself in readiness for any eventuality. 

“Line of Marboro? You-don’t-tell-me-so. 
Well! You-interest-me,-John. Proceed.” 

4 35 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


Mr. Fraser handed the lawyer the old let- 
ter. Mr. Paley put on his spectacles and 
read it with amazement. 

When he had finished he handed the letter 
back, took off his spectacles, and blew his 
nose on a blue silk handkerchief. After a 
while he said: 

“I knew Sally Marboro very well, John. 
In fact, I — Well, it was twenty-five or thirty 
years ago, y’understand. Most of the young 
bloods about town here were in love with 
her. That was long before you came here. 
Guess you never saw her.” 

“No, I never had that pleasure.” 

“Too bad! Wonderful girl — full of spirit! 
Mighty pretty, too. Ran off with a young 
scamp, name of Ramsdell. Colonel Marboro 
never got over it, but he wouldn’t let her 
come back. Killed him. Killed his other 
girl, too — this Kate — or helped to. She was 
a cripple — sort of a hunchback. Took pneu- 
monia and died a month after the colonel. 
I settled up the estate. Trunkful of debts 
and no assets but the house. I spent a year 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


tracing Sally — finally heard of her in Jack- 
sonville. I thought the family was extinct. 
Funny I never heard of this — ” 

“Then the child may still be alive?” 

“Quite possible. May have left it with 
friends in the North when she took Brown 
to Florida. Too bad! Poor Sally Marboro — ” 

Neither Mr. Fraser nor Tom had noticed 
that the tinkle of taut piano-strings had 
ceased to come from the parlor across the hall. 
Mr. Paley was, therefore, the least astonished 
of the three by the sudden creaking of a 
rusty hinge and the appearance of a hand 
around the casement of the partly opened 
library door. A moment later Professor Gili- 
kin felt his way into the room. 

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Fraser,” he said, 
hoarsely; “but I thought I heard the name 
of Sally Marboro.” 

“You did,” replied the manufacturer, 
rising. 

“Then I was right — this is the old Mar- 
boro mansion.” 

“Yes.” 


37 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


“It seemed familiar. I was here once 
many years ago, before I lost my eyes. In 
those days I played the piano in an orchestra, 
and I remember coming here to play for a 
dance. Sally Marboro — I remember very 
distinctly, now. . . . Thank you, and I hope 
you’ll excuse the interruption. Tom, give 
me a shoulder back to the parlor, will you?” 

The Professor blinked his sightless eyes 
as though he saw something invisible to the 
others, something bright and wonderful. The 
boy scurried to his side and led him from 
the room, 

Mr. Fraser crossed the room and closed 
the library door. Then he went back and 
seated himself opposite the mystified lawyer. 

“Queerest thing I ever heard of,” ejacu- 
lated Mr. Paley. “Remember the dance 
perfectly. There myself and danced with 
Sally Marboro half a dozen times. Who is 
this party?” 

“Professor Gilikin, piano-tuner.” Mr. 
Fraser glanced at the Professor’s round-cor- 
nered, yellow business-card which lay on the 

38 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 

corner of the table. “His address is Cider 
Alley and Reservoir Road, in case you should 
ever require his services. The boy is his 
assistant.” 

“Most extraordinary thing I ever heard 
of,” continued Paley, “that letter turning 
up just at this moment, after lying concealed 
in the bowels of that piano for twelve years. 
It’s queer, John, mighty queer. Fact is. 
I’ve got to run over to Cleveland next week.” 
“Is that so?” 

“Yes. Go right by Akron. Could easily 
stop off.” 

“You don’t tell me, Sam!” 

“But I do tell you. By George! I believe 
I’ll just stop off and have a little look around. 
Can’t do any harm. Might hear something.” 

“It is just possible,” admitted Mr. Fraser. 
“You say next week?” 

“I said next week,” admitted Paley, “but 
on second thought, think I’d better make it 
to-morrow.” 

“There’s no time like the present, Sam.” 
“You’re right, John. Right as right. Pro- 

39 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


crastination has been my ruination. Been 
my curse. Kept me poor all my life. Why, 
do you know, John, I planned to run off 
with Sally Marboro once, myself. Put it off. 
Ramsdell got her.” 

Fraser smiled as he helped his friend into 
a rather threadbare overcoat. It was a 
question whether there was business enough 
in Sam Paley’s office to make his presence 
or absence on the morrow a matter of the 
smallest consequence; but the alleged errand 
to Cleveland was a palpable fiction. 

“I usually am right, Sam. And, by the 
way, on the chance that you might turn up 
something, you know, let me give you a 
little check.” 

“Not a penny — not a scratch,” protested 
Paley, whose sole source of income was prob- 
ably Fraser Forge and Foundry. Mr. Fraser 
calmly sat down at the table, took a check- 
book from a drawer, and began to fill in the 
blanks. 

“Are you, or are you not, of counsel for 
John Fraser, Sam?” 


40 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 

“I am. But this is — ” 

“ My business, Sam. If I want to send you 
to Akron on a wild-goose chase I’d like to 
know why I shouldn’t foot the bill.” 

- “ Going on my own account.” 

“Also on mine.' Besides, if you happen to 
find Sally Marboro’s boy you will want to 
give him a little present. This is Christmas- 
time, you know.” 

That statement could not be successfully 
controverted, and Paley well knew his own 
financial inability to do justice to the occa- 
sion. He jammed the slip of paper into his 
wallet, therefore, and, with a few more stac- 
cato protestations, took his departure. 


CHAPTER V 


r noon Mr. Fraser invited Tom and 



xTL the Professor to have lunch with him, 
thereby saving them the chilly journey to a 
restaurant, not to mention some small actual 
outlay of money. Afterward the old gentle- 
man departed in a closed automobile — called 
from a garage — to spend an hour or so in his 
office. Tom was previously advised not to 
try to take any of the little engines apart, 
but received permission to throw on the 
current from the storage battery and watch 
the wheels go around. 

About four o’clock Mr. Fraser returned. 
From a pocket of his overcoat he produced 
a long package in blue paper, which proved 
to contain a box of dominoes. Tom had 
never played dominoes, but was anxious to 
learn, and they got down to business forth- 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 

with. They used an immense drawing-board, 
laid across a taboret of convenient height for 
a table. 

Neither Mr. Fraser nor Tom dreamed that 
dominoes could be so interesting. The din, 
in fact, presently became so great as to 
effectually drown the noise of the piano-tun- 
ing across the hall. When Mr. Fraser was 
forced to make repeated and bootless trips 
to the bone-pile Tom howled with delight, 
and when Tom, in turn, met his periods of 
misfortune Mr. Fraser lolled back in his 
chair and said, “ Hah-hah-hah !” with such 
gusto as to make the glass pendants on the 
chandelier chatter with alarm. And no won- 
der. There hadn’t been such a racket in the 
old house for ten years. Plainly the pendants 
didn’t like it; and that is not surprising, 
either, when you remember by what a frail 
tenure they clung to their rusted supports. 

The second game had to be stopped in 
the middle, at five o’clock, when the Pro- 
fessor laid down his tools for the day, but 
the board was most carefully set aside, 
4 ? 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


and Marcus was explicitly warned not to 
touch it. 

Next morning, promptly at nine o’clock, 
the game was resumed with new vim. They 
played all forenoon and nearly all afternoon, 
for Mr. Fraser found it possible to dispense 
with his daily visit to the factory. In 
truth, he doubted the advisability of ven- 
turing out of doors — such a nasty turn had 
the weather taken by two o’clock in the 
afternoon. It had begun to snow soon after 
Tom and the Professor had arrived, and the 
storm presently developed into a blizzard. 
How it blew! The wind roared around the 
corners of the old house in a way to make 
you shiver; but the fires roared and chuckled 
in the big fireplaces in a fashion to make you 
laugh with glee. It wasn’t such a bad old 
house, after all. Mr. Fraser had never 
dreamed that it could be made so com- 
fortable and cozy. He sat beside the fire, in 
his dressing-gown and slippers, playing dom- 
inoes with a red-cheeked, bright-eyed boy 
and was entirely content, except when he 
44 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


thought, with a commiserative sigh, of poor 
Sam Paley, shivering on stalled street-cars, 
fuming on snow-bound steam-trains, block- 
aded at obscure junctions, striving to get to 
Akron upon a quixotic errand that would 
never put a dollar in his shabby pocket. 

Late in the afternoon the Professor ap- 
peared in the doorway to announce that his 
work was completed. The piano was tuned. 

Tom and Mr. Fraser heard this news with 
dismay. Surely there must be some mistake. 
The Professor had promised, in the beginning, 
that it would take him three days to do the 
job, had he not? Now he had perfidiously 
and inexcusably finished it up in two days. 
Mr. Fraser gravely called his attention to 
this flagrant misrepresentation. The Pro- 
fessor smiled and explained that certain ex- 
pected difficulties had not materialized; the 
work had gone more expeditiously than he 
had anticipated. 

With a sigh Mr. Fraser put by the domino- 
board, and, going to his table, wrote a check 
for twenty-five dollars. He sadly ordered 
45 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 

Marcus to put Hank Honk in the cart and 
bring him around front. Then he exacted a 
promise from Tom to come in and see him 
whenever the Professor happened to be tun- 
ing in the neighborhood, and assured the 
head of the firm that he would always be 
willing to bear testimony to the efficiency 
and despatch with which he had executed his 
task. There was some argument as to 
whether they ought, after all, to attempt to 
go home in such weather; but, the snow 
having ceased to fall, and Tom having un- 
limited confidence in Hank Honk’s ability 
to burrow through the drifts, this was de- 
cided in favor of setting out. Tom was 
desired to play “Peter-Peter” on the newly 
tuned piano, just to show that all the strings 
were in perfect harmony, and did so, thereby 
winning the unstinted applause of Marcus 
and Mr. Fraser. And so, after a quarter of 
an hour spent in hitching Hank Honk to the 
cart, scurrying abotit to see that no tools had 
been left behind from the Professor’s kit, 
making one more hurried and longing inspec- 
46 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


tion of the little engines, shaking Marcus 
and Mr. Fraser by the hand, pulling on 
overcoats, caps, and the Professor’s velvet 
ear-muffs — they at last got under way. 

Mr. Fraser went back to his chair before 
the fire. The big house relapsed into silence. 
The pendants on the chandeliers breathed 
again. If they could have known what was 
going on in the brain of the weary old 
gentleman before the fire they would have 
quaked with terror to the very depths of their 
translucent souls. 

The old man was still wrapped in moody 
reflection when his servant announced dinner. 

The dining-room was cold. The whole 
house had, somehow, grown colder in the 
past hour. Mr. Fraser called Marcus’s at- 
tention to this as he sat down to his solitary 
repast. When the servant returned from 
turning up the gas heater, which was assumed 
to warm this room from below, Mr. Fraser 
had disposed of his rather cold sirloin steak 
and was busy with an over-seasoned salad. 
He fixed Marcus with a glance of disapproval. 

47 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


“You’ve been with me a long time, Mar- 
cus, haven’t you?” 

“Yes, suh. About twenty years, suh.” 
It was really a rather encouraging question, 
when you examined it closely — around 
Christmas-time. 

“Don’t tell anybody, Marcus.” 

“No, suh.” 

This was not so hope-inspiring. A leaf 
of lettuce having eluded Mr. Fraser’s fork 
three times, he took it with his fingers and 
put it in his mouth. 

“The trouble with me, Marcus, is that I’ve 
been too busy making machines, isn’t it?” 

“Yes, suh. I suppose so, suh, if you say 
so.” 

“I’m glad you agree with me.” 

Marcus never disagreed with Mr. Fraser 
on any point, even though it involved shifting 
his position like a weathercock a dozen times 
an hour. 

“If I’d made a few less machines and taken 
time to make a home for myself I’d have 
been better off, wouldn’t I?” 

43 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


“Yes, suh. Indeed you would, suh.” 

“And you’d have been out of a job.” 

“Yes, suh. That is, I don’t know, suh. 
I expec’s so, though.” 

“Of course you would. No woman in the 
world would ever have endured you.” 

“Maybe not, suh, if youah talkin’ about 
women, suh.” 

“We were talking about homes, weren’t 
we?” cried Mr. Fraser, with impatience. 
“You never heard of a home without a 
woman in it, did you?” 

“No, suh, I nevah did, suh. But I notice 
children sort of liven a place up like.” 

“Hum,” said Mr. Fraser, reaching for the 
oil-bottle. “I must ask you once more, 
Marcus, not to be quite so free with the pa- 
prika in dressing my salad.” 

“Yes, suh.” 

“ Well, go and think it over.” 

Mr. Fraser was obviously in a bad humor. 
He presently returned to the library and 
threw two logs on the fire as though he had 
a spite against them. Then he sat down 

49 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


and stared into the blaze, oblivious, appar- 
ently, to all his surroundings, including the 
storm, which had begun again furiously at 
dark. He sat so for a full hour. Then the 
telephone rang. 


CHAPTER VI 


T OM and the Professor sat down to their 
evening meal amid circumstances of 
unusual festivity. They had been able to 
get Mr. Fraser’s check cashed by a grocer 
in the Reservoir Road, and had immediately 
invested an almost prodigal portion of it in 
potatoes, canned corn, bacon, beans, etc. 
Oddly enough, it was Professor Gilikin who 
discovered that the grocer had a stock of 
Christmas decorations, holly and mistletoe — 
he stuck his cane into a heap of evergreen — 
and they had to buy some of that, too. Tom 
had been eying the greenery covetously, but 
refrained from mentioning an article that 
was so evidently to be classified as a luxury. 

One of the holly wreaths was hung in the 
kitchen window, where Hank Honk, if he 
had been able to turn around in his stable — 
5 51 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 

which he was not — and stick his head out 
of the door, would have had a good view of 
it. The other was suspended in the front of 
the shack for the delectation of such daring 
travelers as might brave the perils of Reser- 
voir Road, which at this point was ungraded 
and impossible for vehicles. 

The bacon and beans, with unlimited rye 
bread and butter, were fine — as to both qual- 
ity and quantity. It was, in fact, a gorgeous 
and an elegant supper, as Tom, “chief 
assistant head cook and bottle-washer,” mod- 
estly admitted. Best of all, there was more 
money in the bank — a tin baking-powder can 
that the Professor kept in a corner of his 
tool-case — than there had been at any time 
for months past. It promised to be a very 
jolly Christmas season. 

Tom, who finished eating first, threw his 
tin platter into the sink in the corner and 
shoved back his stool. He performed these 
functions in the order mentioned; a business 
man who is also “head assistant cook” can- 
not be expected to take time to walk across 

52 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


the room and tediously lay such articles in 
the dishpan by hand. Having disposed of 
the tin coffee-cup in the same manner, he 
put an elbow on the table, his chin in his 
hand, and propounded the following ques- 
tion: 

“Professor, what is a bobbin?” 

“A bobbin — why, a bobbin, Tommy, is 
something that bobs, either up and down or 
sideways — I don’t know that it makes much 
difference, so that it bobs. Why?” 

“Do you think that Robin the Bobbin 
will bob?” 

“Who’s Robin the Bobbin?” 

“He was that lady’s little boy that she 
wrote about in that letter. Don’t you re- 
member?” 

“I didn’t hear it all. But if Sally Marboro 
had a little boy, I wouldn’t be a plagued bit 
surprised if he did just bob up any time.” 

“I wish he would,” sighed Tom. “And 
then he’d live with Mr. Fraser and I’d go to 
see him, and we’d run the little model 
engines.” 


53 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 

“But maybe Robin the Bobbin wouldn’t 
want to leave his friends and go to live with 
Mr. Fraser,” suggested the Professor. 

“Sure he would,” said Tom, confidently, 
“if he once saw those little machines.” 

“I expect you’re right,” sighed Professor 
Gilikin. “He — he couldn’t resist them.” 

The Professor having now finished his 
beans, Tom removed the plate and brought 
a corn-cob pipe from the shelf above the 
stove. He filled it and held a lighted spill 
until it was burning properly. Then he 
washed the dishes; this was a very simple 
operation and occupied about three minutes. 
The Professor had become curiously thought- 
ful and silent, but when Tom sat down 
again beside the table he threw off this mood 
and they talked of various and joyous things, 
such as Christmas trees, stuffed turkey, glass 
parrakeets with electric lights inside of them, 
railways to run with storage batteries around 
one’s parlor, Mr. Fraser’s little engines, and, 
eventually, of Sally Marboro. Upon this 
last topic the Professor did all the talking, 

54 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 

f 

and he spoke more to himself than to Tom, 
who didn’t understand more than half of 
what was said. He was dimly aware, how- 
ever, that the Professor was recalling the 
scenes of a joyous past, before he had lost 
his eyes, before he had fallen upon the later 
evil days. This soliloquy would probably 
have gone on until midnight had it not been 
interrupted by a terrific commotion in the 
alley. 

At first they thought it was Hank Honk, 
who often emitted inexplicable noises, but 
it sounded far more like the purr of a gigantic 
cat than the evening song of a well-behaved 
donkey. The purr presently grew to a roar, 
punctuated by staccato reports somewhat 
louder than musket-shots. Tom hurried to 
the doorway just as a brilliant shaft of light 
from the lamps of an automobile swung 
around the curve of the alley, below the 
house, and the machine plowed its muffled, 
jerky way through the snow toward the gate. 
Now arose a thumping commotion in the 
piano-box, Hank Honk was not the last to 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 

realize that something out of the ordinary 
was afoot. 

The car stopped — it entirely filled the 
alley, which was lined with tumble-down 
wooden fences — and a fur-coated figure got 
out of the interior and came toward the shack. 

“It’s — it’s Mr. Fraser!” yelled Tom. 

“You bet,” replied the visitor, as he 
reached the threshold. 

“Lord, no!” exclaimed the Professor, in- 
credulously, “not on a night like this.” 

Mr. Fraser stamped his feet on the step 
and entered, unbuttoning his great-coat and 
turning down the collar. Refusing to lay 
off his coat, he accepted the chair offered by 
the hospitable Tom, and sat down. 

“You may well believe,” he began, “that 
it is important business that brings me out 
in such weather. The streets are almost 
impassable, sir.” 

“I hope nothing has gone wrong with the 
piano,” said the Professor. 

“ If the piano were to explode and dissolve 
into its constituent elements it would be 

56 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


a mere trifle in comparison with what has 
actually occurred and is presently to happen.” 

“Crackers!” ejaculated the Professor. 

“To come immediately to the point, for I 
have but a few minutes to stay,” continued 
Mr. Fraser, “Sam Paley has found trace of 
Robin the Bobbin. He is going to bring 
Sally Marboro’s child to Colchester to- 
morrow; at least, that is my interpretation 
of a telephone conversation that I had with 
him about half an hour ago. The truth is, 
I couldn’t hear more than one word in ten, 
there was such a buzzing and crackling all 
the while, in the telephone. The snow-storm 
has almost wrecked the system, and Sam 
said he’d been working an hour to get a 
connection from Akron. I guessed at what 
I couldn’t hear, and I am convinced that he 
has, as a matter of fact, discovered this 
Bobbin youngster and expects to fetch it 
here. Now, what do you think of that news?” 

The Professor blinked his sightless eyes 
and opened his mouth twice, but no sound 
came forth. 


57 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


“Great!” cried Tom. “And will you teach 
him to run the little engines?” 

“I suppose I’ll have to,” sighed Mr. 
Fraser. “Not only that, but we’ll have to 
stir right round now and make some prepara- 
tion to entertain him. Don’t you see Sam’s 
scheme? It’s all as plain as day to me. He 
wants to get me into having a Christmas 
party. I’ll bet he thinks I don’t know how 
to give a Christmas party, and, by thunder! 
I’ll show him. All I need is just a little bit 
of help and advice. I thought maybe Tom 
might come down to-morrow and give me 
a lift. Marcus is such a dunderhead I can’t 
depend on him to do anything right.” 

Tom was speechless with delight. Profess- 
or Gilikin said he had nothing to do to- 
morrow, and he could spare the boy very 
well; but Mr. Fraser explained that they 
were both to come and he was willing to 
pay the firm at the same rate for trimming a 
Christmas tree as for tuning pianos. There 
was some argument as to whether this would 
be just, Mr. Fraser holding that, while trim- 
58 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 

ruing Christmas trees did not require as much 
skill as piano-tuning, it was a far more 
dangerous occupation, and that must be 
taken into account. It was settled, at any 
rate, that they were to come in the morning 
prepared to stay all day and for the party 
in the evening. The Professor demurred 
somewhat at this; but Mr. Fraser said he 
would be simply nowhere if he didn’t have 
Tom to help him with the tree, and, besides, 
he felt that he ought to have another boy 
the Bobbin’s age at the party, and, if it wasn’t 
Tom, who would it be? This brought to 
light the curious fact that Mr. Fraser hadn’t 
any friends in Colchester less than half a 
century old — a miserable state of affairs, 
certainly. It so excited the compassion of 
Tom and the Professor that they readily 
consented to come early in the morning, pre- 
pared to stay all day, and then, probably, 
make a night of it. But, of course, they 
couldn’t think of taking any money for help- 
ing with the decorations. It wouldn’t do. 
This was purely a social contract, and the 

59 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


firm of Gilikin, Bunting & Hank Honk could 
assuredly not take a penny for giving them- 
selves so much pleasure. Even a blind man 
could see that, observed the Professor, with 
a smile. And Mr. Fraser replied that he 
wouldn’t quarrel about it, for he had often 
noticed that blind people frequently had 
finer powers of perception than anybody else. 

Thus the arrangements were concluded, 
and, putting on his gloves and hat, Mr. 
Fraser departed in his automobile. 


CHAPTER VII 


I MMEDIATELY upon finishing an un- 
usually early breakfast next morning, 
John Fraser telephoned his secretary at the 
factory that he would not be there that day. 
Having thus dismissed the Fraser Forge and 
Foundry from his mind, he and Tom set out 
blithely, in a large and luxurious limousine, 
to buy Christmas presents for Robin the 
Bobbin. 

Buying presents for a strange person with 
whose tastes and predilections one is not 
familiar is no trifling task. Mr. Fraser’s idea 
was to get such a vast number of various 
things that some of them would be bound 
to please. On the chance that he might be 
fond of the chase, they got a target-rifle and 
a fishing-rod. Then they added a toboggan, 
skates, hockey-stick, and a miscellaneous col- 
61 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


lection of books. Decorations for the Christ- 
mas tree they bought in wholesale fashion 
and ordered them sent to the house, where 
Marcus was engaged in erecting the tree in 
the front parlor, under the able direction of 
the Professor, who appeared to have seen 
more Christmas trees before he lost his eyes 
than you would have at first suspected. 

Tom selected most of the articles. Mr. 
Fraser evidently placed unlimited reliance 
on his discrimination. When the question of 
the presents for the Professor and Hank 
Honk came up, Tom disclosed the plan rela- 
tive to the blanket for the donkey, gloves for 
Mr. Gilikin, and, after some modest squirm- 
ing, a fur cap for himself. In twenty minutes 
these articles were added to their purchases, 
together with a few other curious packages, 
obtained from sympathetic and attentive 
clerks in mysterious asides by Mr. Fraser. 
Tom may have had his pleasurable suspi- 
cions, but wisely chose to ignore these por- 
tentous interviews. 

When they at length returned to Van 
6S 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 

Cleve Avenue the interior of the limousine 
was so choked with packages that Tom 
would fain have sat outside with the chauf- 
feur, but for the fear that, if he removed 
his eyes from their treasures for a moment, 
something might fall out and get lost. 

Marcus had impressed a young and very 
dusky cousin, formerly a waiter in a hotel, 
into the service, and the two had the tree 
planted in a soap-box full of bricks and guyed 
up with invisible wires to the casements of 
the front windows, when Tom and Mr. Fraser 
got back. It was a noble tree. The top- 
most branch, on which Tom, precariously 
perched on a high step-ladder, was presently 
to affix a silver star, just brushed the ceiling. 
Tom said he’d never seen such a fat tree 
in his life; usually they tended to be skinny, 
and if they weren’t skinny they were lop- 
sided, which was worse. This tree, on the 
other hand, was beautifully proportioned, 
well-nurtured, and flourishing. It was a joy 
to decorate its lusty boughs. 

Well, they covered the floor all around the 

63 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


tree with artificial moss, and upon that they 
put a layer of imitation snow. Then they 
hung hundreds of streaks of silver rain 
among the branches, which were presently 
inhabited by scores of all kinds of birds, 
from humming-birds to parrots, not to men- 
tion cats, dogs, lions, and elephants, all in 
gorgeous colors, all made of glass, and each 
one containing a two-candle-power electric 
light, which would glow gaily at the proper 
time. Mr. Fraser, having made a fortune 
out of the manufacture of dynamos and the 
like, had never bothered to have electric 
lights put in his house; but he had a storage 
battery to operate the models that would 
supply ample current for the tree. 

They were marking the packages with 
cards and putting them in the artificial snow- 
drifts when Tom, happening to open one of 
the books — a volume of Mother Goose 
rhymes — of a sudden barked like a dog that 
crosses a rabbit track. 

“It tells about him here, Mr. Fraser,” he 
shouted. 

G4 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 

“About whom?” 

“Robin the Bobbin.” 

“In that book?” 

“Yes, sir. I just happened to notice it.” 
“Well, what does it say?” 

Tom read the nursery rhyme slowly, sitting 
cross-legged beside the tree: 

“Robin the Bobbin, the big-bellied Ben, 

He eats more meat than fourscore men — ” 

“What’s that?” cried Mr. Fraser. 

“It says, ‘he eats more meat than four- 
score men !’ ” 

“Go on.” 

“He ate a cow; he ate a calf; 

He ate a butcher and a half. 

He ate a church; he ate the steeple; 

He ate the priest and all the people.” 

Tom laughed and closed the book. “Gee! 
what an appetite!” 

Mr. Fraser was vastly alarmed. He sent 
for Marcus and asked him sternly what he 
had for supper. 

A large turkey, peas, potatoes, salad, cran- 

65 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


berry sauce, fruit cake, orange marmalade, 
plum pudding, candy, and ice-cream,” re- 
plied the servant. 

“It won’t do,” said Mr. Fraser, sadly, to 
the great alarm of Marcus. “You must 
send out for a whole cow and a calf, two 
butchers, a church with its steeple, a parson, 
and a nice, well-fed congregation for dessert. 
Robin the Bobbin will be hungry after his 
journey, and we must not let him starve. 
The turkey won’t make a sandwich for him.” 

To hear Mr. Fraser gravely discoursing 
such nonsense, and to observe the expression 
of mystified anxiety spread over Marcus’s 
face was a real joy. Tom howled with mirth, 
and the Professor laughed aloud. Tom had 
to explain that it was a joke, and he read 
Marcus the verse from the book, explaining 
that the rhyme didn’t refer to a real person, 
and that probably our Robin the Bobbin 
wouldn’t eat any more than Tom himself, 
for example, or any other little boy twelve or 
fourteen years old. Marcus, greatly relieved, 
returned to the kitchen. 

66 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


They worked at it all day, draping and re- 
draping festoons of tinsel, hanging gaudy 
glass balls from the tips of slender boughs, 
twining electric wires about the trunk so that 
they wouldn’t show, putting the glass cat and 
the glass canary-bird on opposite branches 
so as not to excite the carnal appetite of the 
one or endanger the existence of the other. 
They worked hard, too. The Professor and 
Mr. Fraser sat in comfortable chairs most of 
the time and directed Tom where to hang 
the baubles. When necessary, Mr. Fraser 
steadied the step-ladder for him. And every- 
body was as gay and jolly as could be, with 
the possible exception of the Professor, who 
had been wrapped in an unaccustomed gloom 
all day. 

6 ' 


CHAPTER VIII 


AN early winter dusk had fallen and 
r\ Marcus had borrowed the step-ladder 
long enough to light the chandelier, which 
now sputtered and sissed — half its jets were 
choked with dust and dirt — and glittered 
with an effulgence that Tom thought mar- 
velously fine. The back parlor also was 
illuminated, and here, behind drawn curtains, 
a round oak table brought from the dining- 
room was being set by Marcus and his cousin, 
while Tom, the Professor, and Mr. Fraser 
put the finishing touches on the tree. 

There was some fear, at first, that Sam 
Paley and the Bobbin might arrive before 
the decorations were complete. Mr. Fraser, 
having looked up a time-table, predicted that 
they would get in on the “four-forty-five,” 
and it was now five o’clock. The last strings 
68 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


of tinsel had to be draped upon the tree in 
such haste as to seriously endanger the 
artistic effect of the whole, as well as to 
place in grave jeopardy the active limbs of 
Mr. Bunting. The last half-dozen packages 
had to be stacked up in the corner with one 
comprehensive ticket bearing the direction, 
“ Robin the Bobbin.” It took some hustling, 
but everything was finished, in good style, 
and when Tom tethered the last remaining 
bauble from the only visibly unencumbered 
spray of green, the guests had not yet rung 
the front-door bell. It had been, toward the 
end, a race against time, and they all sighed 
with profound relief when it was finally won. 

Tom peeped out of a window to see if 
they weren’t coming up-street. They weren’t 
yet. So all sat down to rest from their 
labors and to await the advent of Sam Paley 
and the child of Sally Marboro; that is to 
say, Mr. Fraser and the Professor continued 
sitting in the chairs where they had been 
most of the afternoon, and Tom took one 

more look at the tree, climbed up in the 
60 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


broad window-sill, and flattened his nose 
against the frosty glass in an effort to see 
around the corner into Hollowell Street, 
through the snow, which had recommenced; 
ran to the library to see if he couldn’t obtain 
a better view from its windows, but found 
them iced over and non-transparent, the fire 
having been allowed to get low in this 
room; paused to examine some of the little 
engines; ran to the kitchen to see how 
Marcus was coming on with the turkey; 
was driven thence with outcry and threaten- 
ing by Marcus and Marcus’s cousin, armed 
with a potato-masher and a spoon that must 
have been fully as large and handsome as 
the one that is said to have been enticed away 
by the dish, long ago, during a temporary 
bovine obfuscation of the moon. Returning 
to the parlor, he demanded of Mr. Fraser 
and the Professor whether they were really 
sure the Bobbin would like it. The manu- 
facturer said he didn’t see how a normal 
boy could fail to be pleased, and Professor 
Gilikin said he had no doubts whatever on 


70 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


the subject. He said he was just sure that 
Sally Marboro’s child would enjoy this sort 
of thing, and he hoped he would get here 
in time to see the tree. 

66 In time to see the tree?” howled Tom. Was 
there any shadow of a possibility that he 
wouldn’t get here in time? he demanded. 

“Well — I wouldn’t be surprised if the 
train was late,” sighed the Professor. “ We’ve 
had an awful lot of snow this week.” 

“But Mr. Paley said he’d be here with 
Robin the Bobbin. He will, won’t he, Mr. 
Fraser?” 

“I’m dead certain of it,” said their host, 
decisively. “Sam Paley is a man of his 
word. What he says he will do, he does.” 

“And you don’t think the train will be 
late, do you?” 

As to that Mr. Fraser was not prepared 
to venture an opinion. However, it was com- 
paratively easy to set their minds at rest. 
They could telephone the railroad station 
and find out. 

They did. The “four-forty-five” was re- 
7J 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 

ported an hour and twenty minutes behind 
time. 

Well, it would make supper pretty late, 
but there was no help for it. Marcus was 
notified to put down brakes on his prepara- 
tions and turn the fire low under the oven. 
Then they all sat down to wait. The Pro- 
fessor and Mr. Fraser resumed their com- 
fortable chairs in the parlor, but Tom sat on 
nearly everything in the house. He perched 
for a time, with one leg under him, in each of 
the front windows; reclined at- full length, 
for a few moments, on the hearth-rug; 
squatted like a Turk in front of the tree; 
lay with his head down and his shabby heels 
up on the sofa; tried the staircase in the 
hall, and found it too cold and uncomfortable; 
rode for a while on the newel-post; went out 
and took a look up-street and got covered 
with snow as well as narrowly escaping 
auricular frost-bite, and, finally, returned to 
melt on the hearth-rug. 

After an hour of this they called the 
station again and learned that No. 18 was 
72 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 

still one hour and forty-five minutes late. 
Ensued some argument as to whether that 
was what “the feller said before.” Regretful 
conclusion that No. 18 was getting later and 
later. 

In twenty minutes they importuned the 
railroad company for further information, 
only to be informed that all wires were down 
and nobody seemed to know where No. 18 
was or would venture an opinion as to 
whether it would ever reach Colchester at all. 

This was discouraging. They couldn’t 
think of sitting down to the feast without 
Sam Paley and Robin the Bobbin; but, on 
the other hand, they were all desperately 
hungry, and it was now almost eight o’clock. 
Marcus stated with feeling that if that sup- 
per wasn’t eaten right away it wouldn’t be 
worth eating, nohow. That turkey, unless 
attended to mighty soon, would just natu- 
rally jump out of the oven and hop in to the 
banquet-hall, to the everlasting scandal of 
all concerned. 

With regret that amounted almost to 
73 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


heartbreak, therefore, Mr. Fraser ordered 
the feast to be set before them, and they 
were all just on the point of moving toward 
the back parlor when there came a stamping 
as of wild horses on the porch, a jangling of 
the door-bell, a bursting open of the front 
door, which thereupon admitted a swirl of 
snow, a gust of icy wind, and the arctic form 
of Sam Paley. 

His gauntlets, his gaiters, and his fur cap 
were incrusted with snow. His eyebrows 
were built out an inch with it. His pockets 
were cold-storage pits. His face was frozen 
in an expression of abject melancholy. He 
was alone. 

“Welcome, Captain Peary,” cried Mr. 
Fraser, with an attempt at jollity. 

Paley made no reply, but resigned himself 
to the ministrations of Marcus and Marcus’s 
cousin, who helped him off with his coat, 
cap, muffler, and gaiters. The street-cars 
had stopped running, he mumbled, and he 
had been* compelled to walk the two miles 
from the depot, 


74 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


These offices performed, the old lawyer 
was ensconced in a big chair before the fire 
and given to drink a cup of steaming coffee, 
purveyed from the kitchen by Marcus. His 
wet shoes were pulled off by Marcus’s cousin, 
who replaced them with an old pair of very 
commodious slippers, the property of Mr. 
Fraser. Circulation having been restored in 
his lower extremities and his vocal cords 
having been measurably thawed by the 
coffee, he turned to the president of the 
Fraser Forge and Foundry Company and 
sadly told his story. 


CHAPTER IX 


1 HAVE failed, John,” he groaned, “mis- 
erably and contemptibly failed in my 
errand.” 

“You’re back, at any rate, safe and sound,” 
comforted his employer, “and that is some- 
thing.” 

Paley shook his head. “When I tele- 
phoned you,” he went on, “I had a clue 
which I felt could not but lead me to Sara 
Marboro’s child. It came to nothing, less 
than nothing. John, I cannot even discover 
evidence that the boy is alive.” 

“Come, come, Sam,” said Mr. Fraser. “Of 
course he is alive, and probably kicking most 
vigorously. We’re bound to run across him 
one of these days. Isn’t that your opinion, 
Professor Gilikin?” 

The piano-tuner had found his way to a 
76 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


chair in the comer between the chimney and 
one of the fluted pillars, where his face was 
out of the bright play of the firelight. 

“I — I hope so,” he faltered. “Of course, 
it’s a long time since he disappeared. Ten 
years, didn’t you say?” 

“Almost eleven,” sighed Paley. “The boy 
must have been between two and three 
years old. I got that from a Mrs. O’Connell, 
who kept, and still keeps, the boarding- 
house where Leidiker Brown and his wife 
and son stayed while in Akron. This lady 
remembered the circumstances very clearly, 
for she had taken quite a fancy to Sally 
Brown and her baby — as was natural, John, 
for she was a most lovable woman. She was 
constantly doing little kindnesses which en- 
deared her to all who knew her. Mrs. O’Con- 
nell, who seems a most admirable lady, 
remembered this characteristic most clearly. 
She gave me one eloquent instance of her 
benevolence — one out of thousands that she 
could have recounted, if I had had time to 
listen, John. Scarcely a fortnight before she 
77 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


was compelled to go South with her husband, 
Sally Brown had met, one wintry night, upon 
the streets of Akron, a wastrel musician of 
the name of Gilkerson, whom she had once 
known slightly in Colchester. The acquain- 
tanceship was but slight, and claim upon her 
sympathy he had none whatever, but her 
interest was so much awakened that she 
inquired into his circumstances and learned 
that he was without employment. A gas- 
explosion had so injured his eyes that he 
could no longer read music quickly, and this 
made it very difficult for him to get a position. 
Her heart was touched. The fact of his 
coming from Colchester, her home town, 
probably had as much to do with it as the 
fellow’s deplorable condition; but, be that 
as it may, she took him to Mrs. O’Connell’s, 
saw him fed, warmed, loaned him a small 
sum of money, and, I believe, used her in- 
fluence with a friendly orchestra-leader to 
obtain employment for him. That is the 
kind of woman Sally Marboro was, John.” 

Mr. Fraser expressed his admiration. The 

78 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


Professor stared stonily into space and made 
no comment. Sam Paley continued his nar- 
rative: 

“A certain familiarity came to exist, as 
was but natural — for what heart could fail 
to respond to such treatment with expression 
of the sincerest gratitude? — between this 
Gilkerson and the Browns. With no other 
inmates of the boarding-house did they show 
any intimacy whatever, excepting in the 
case of one couple, a middle-aged man and 
his wife of the name of Aker — George Aker. 
He was a printer, and — as now we know — 
a scoundrel. I hope yet to see him behind 
the bars. Assuredly I can put him there, 
if I so desire. This pair had so ingratiated 
themselves with Sally Brown that, when 
she found it necessary to fly South with 
her husband, she was prevailed upon to leave 
her son Robert with them. Within a month 
of her departure the Akers removed to 
Cleveland and — incidentally — Gilkerson lost 
his job in the orchestra and left town. Mrs. 
O’Connell distinctly recalled that she had 
79 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


two rooms vacated without warning on the 
same day. Having been, as I said, inter- 
ested in the Browns, she took some pains 
to keep track of Mr. and Mrs. George Aker, 
and she was able to inform me that they were 
still in Cleveland and that she had received 
several reports of the health and growth of 
Robert Marboro Brown. She had learned 
of the death of Mr. Brown — quickly fol- 
lowed by that of his wife. The Akers, she 
understood, had adopted Robert — or Robin, 
as his mother called him — and were bringing 
him up as their own child.” 

Sam Paley paused to sigh and shake his 
bristly gray head. 

“It was after my visit to Mrs. O’Connell,” 
he went on, “that I called you on the long- 
distance telephone. Almost missed my train 
to Cleveland by so doing, for many wires 
were down, and I had great difficulty getting 
the connection. But I was so full of my 
good news, John, that I simply had to pass 
some of it on to you. I was elated. I had 
not the slightest doubt that I would look 
80 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 

in the face of Sally Marboro’s boy before 
nightfall. Everything had gone so smoothly 
and I had met, thus far, with so few difficul- 
ties in getting trace of the youngster, that it 
seemed to me a higher power was guiding my 
footsteps and furthering our plan and purpose. 

“I went to Cleveland. I found the Akers 
without difficulty, in a rather squalid quarter 
of the town, but I did not find Robert Brown. 
Within five minutes after I rang their door- 
bell the pair of them were cowering in their 
dirty little parlor, John, begging me not to 
send them to the penitentiary. They had 
not seen Sally Marboro’s child since the 
night they had left Akron, more than ten 
years before. The story they tell has a 
queer sound, but I believe it to be the truth, 
for I don’t believe yon weasel is a murderer. 
The child, according to the deposition of 
Aker, was stolen from them in the railway 
station at Akron. They left it, lying ap- 
parently asleep on a bench in the waiting- 
room, while the man went to see about 
checking their baggage, the woman accom- 
81 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


p anying him to get some article of no conse- 
quence out of their trunk. When they re- 
turned the child was gone. 

“That much I am inclined to believe. 
They state, however, that they made some 
effort to recover it — and that I doubt, for 
they were to receive twenty dollars a week 
for the care of the youngster, as I under- 
stand, and had been paid for three months in 
advance. At first they may have honestly 
believed that the infant would be restored 
to them; at any rate, they were unwilling 
to interrupt the income that would be de- 
rived from its support, and hence made no 
disclosure of the misfortune to its mother. 
To her they sent periodically glowing reports 
of its health and well-being, and to Mrs. 
O’ConnelFs occasional inquiries they were 
obliged to reply in similar strain. Brown, 
as you know, died at Jacksonville, and his 
wife, who was weak and worn from nursing, 
was unable to make the trip North. There 
she remained and there died. At the last 
she sent Aker what money she had — it was 
82 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 

not much, he says, and I expect truthfully — 
and besought him to take Robert to Col- 
chester and throw the child on the mercy of 
its grandfather, with whom or her sister she 
had, in the mean time, had no communica- 
tion. . . . He took her money and promised 
to fulfil her last wish — I suppose the hound 
could do no less, after what had gone before, 
and perhaps the lie was some comfort to poor 
Sally, but I was near to throttling him when 
he told me of it.” 

With something between a snort and a 
sigh and a lifting of thawed eyebrows ex- 
pressive of his amazement at the turpitude 
of man, Sam Paley concluded his brief 
account, without any mention of the trouble 
he had had in getting back from Cleveland 
to Colchester. Tom Bunting pronounced it 
a shame. Mr. Fraser said he thought the 
case ought by all means to be put in the 
hands of the police. The Professor at first 
said nothing, but, later, gave it as his opinion 
that such people as the Akers were unfit to 

have the custody of children. 

7 


CHAPTER X 


I T was a sad blow, after all the preparation 
they had made to entertain the Bobbin— 
the tree, the presents, etc. — and they did 
not immediately recover. They all stared 
abstractedly into the fire, Tom sitting on 
the end of the hearth-rug, with his chin in 
his hands, and Sam Paley with his legs 
stretched out toward the fire to such an 
extent as to reveal several inches of heavy 
gray woolen sock; that is, all but the Pro- 
fessor, who stuck to his shadowy corner. 
They looked more like the near relatives of 
the deceased would look at an oyster funeral, 
if oysters ever had funerals, than anything 
else I can think of. 

It was the turkey that came to the rescue. 
He let it be known that he would really 
have to be eaten now; and Marcus, much 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 

as he feared to break in upon the mourners, 
was obliged to insinuate himself into the 
front parlor and announce, in a subdued 
whisper, that the banquet was about to be 
put on the table. 

Tom was the first to give evidence of re- 
viving spirits. Then Mr. Fraser got up, 
slapped Sam Paley on the back, and told 
him that they ought to try to bear their 
misfortune with firmness and fortitude; and 
after that went to give the Professor an arm 
into the banquet-room. 

A sight of the round table spread therein 
completed the reclamation of their despond- 
ent spirits — at least, in the case of Tom, 
who gave voice to one long-drawn and en- 
thusiastic “ Gee-e-e-e !” 

Mr. Fraser said, “Ha! Our good Marcus 
has excelled himself. I didn’t know he had 
it in him.” Sam Paley even cheered up 
enough to remark that their host was doing 
them proud. 

Mr. Fraser’s place at the left was desig- 
nated unquestionably by the presence of a 
85 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


silver-mounted carving-set. The Professor 
was placed next, at his left, and Sam Paley 
opposite. Tom’s chair was opposite the Pro- 
fessor’s, and his back was toward the cur- 
tains, which were now drawn to shut off 
the front parlor from the banquet-hall. 

Mr. Fraser said grace, and they promptly 
fell to the steaming bowls of cream-of-celery 
soup. Tom had never tasted such a delicacy 
in his life, and felt he would give his ears to 
have the polished tureen replenished. But 
Mr. Fraser, divining his wish, said, firmly, 
no. He must save his strength for other 
and more important work. 

Then Marcus carried in the turkey on an 
enormous platter, and their host proceeded 
to carve the festal fowl. He stood up to do 
this, and worked with maddening delibera- 
tion, pausing now and then to inquire whether 
Tom was hungry, whether he liked “ drum- 
sticks,” and white meat and “stuffing” and 
cranberry sauce; also to wink solemnly and 
openly at Sam Paley. He remarked that in 
the absence of the notoriously voracious Bob- 
86 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 

bin, for whom such an unusual quantity of 
food had been prepared, they would have 
to rely on their young guest to lead the 
attack. Did he feel equal to the occasion? 
Tom said he would do his best, and Mr. 
Fraser accordingly proceeded to scientifically 
heap the plate before him fuller, probably, 
than any plate was ever heaped before. 

The youngest and hungriest of the com- 
pany having thus been served, he proceeded 
to attend to the wants of the Professor and 
Sam Paley. 

It is rather a scandalous admission to make, 
but Tom could not remember to have ever 
eaten turkey before. On rare occasions he 
and Professor Giliken had roasted or fried a 
chicken, but they had never attempted a 
turkey. The trouble about these celebrated 
birds is that they come in such large units 
that a small family can hardly attempt to 
eat a whole one. If somebody would only 
invent a turkey weighing about two pounds, 
suitable for young married couples and old 
piano-tuners and their assistants, one to sell 
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ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


at retail for about ten cents a pound, it 
would fill a long and widely felt vacuity. 

Mr. Fraser said that he figured that every 
boy was entitled to turkey on at least two 
occasions per year — namely, Thanksgiving 
day and Christinas; and, at a conservative 
estimate, he ought to have three helpings 
per occasion. That would make six helpings 
a year, and, putting down Tom’s age as thir- 
teen, he was short some seventy-eight plate- 
fuls. The present celebration, Mr. Fraser 
felt, would give an opportunity to over- 
come the larger part of this handicap, and 
he hoped to see Tom make the very most 
of it. The boy tried to tell them that he 
would do his best, and almost choked on a 
mouthful of cranberries and turkey dressing. 

Sam Paley, having been warmed somewhat 
by the soup, moved his chair back one inch 
farther from the table to allow for better 
elbow-play, and took a new interest in life. 
Mr. Fraser stated that, although Marcus 
had been preparing his meals for a matter of 
ten years, he had never before suspected 
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ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


that he was a cook. Tom, having gained a 
lap at the start, was about one plateful ahead 
of the field and received his third helping 
simultaneously with Sam Paley’s second. 
He stalled on the fourth plate, but finished 
the salad course in good form and promised 
to stay in for the dessert. 

The old lawyer moved his chair back two 
inches farther and said, “Ah-h!” 

From a generally happy mood they pro- 
gressed to positive gaiety. Tom’s knife and 
fork began, at one time, to make such a 
tremendous din on the china that the Profess- 
or mildly reproved him; but Mr. Fraser 
interceded on the boy’s behalf. 

“On this festive occasion,” said he, “we 
cannot allow ourselves to be hampered too 
much by the rules of etiquette. I personally 
am rather fond of the music of cutlery and 
sound earthenware. If he breaks his plate 
we’ll have Marcus bring another from the 
pantry.” 

“Exactly,” said Sam Paley; “it hath a 
jolly clink. And, since Tom hasn’t taken 

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ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


any noticeable part in the conversation, he 
must assuredly be allowed to make some 
noise with his knife and fork. I say, John, 
do you remember that old ‘Bingo’ song we 
used to sing at college?” 

Mr. Fraser wasn’t sure that he did, but 
he felt that if Sam would sing a few staves 
of it he would presently recall the melody. 
The old lawyer thereupon lifted up his voice 
— and it was a sizable voice, too, when he 
gave it free vent — and sang, keeping time 
the while with a spoon on his sherbet-glass. 
Then Mr. Fraser remembered a few of the 
classic lines, and, following the tune as 
interpreted by Paley, joined in the chorus, 
rattling upon his sherbet-glass with his spoon, 
and Tom quickly learned the tune and the 
words, which seemed to be largely “Bingo — 
bingo — bingo,” and hammered gleefully upon 
hi s sherbet-glass with his spoon. 

The old house must certainly have shaken 
to its cobwebbed rafters. The chandelier 
above the table seemed to shiver with alarm, 
or joy, and three pendants fell into Sam, 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 

Paley’s ice-cream plate. If he hadn’t had 
to lean back so far, when he sang, they might 
have gone into his mouth. Tom thought of 
this with mingled joy and regret. Nothing 
could have been funnier than the expression 
of astonishment on the old lawyer’s face; 
but he never missed a syllable of the song. 

The ice-cream and cake and plum pudding 
with brandy sauce having been despatched, 
and Sam Paley having finished his song — 
there were some thirty or forty verses of it 
as he sang it — Marcus cleared the table and 
brought a bowl of steaming punch. That 
done, he retired, and presently, altogether 
without warning and by an invisible hand, 
the curtains between the festal chamber and 
the front parlor were drawn suddenly back. 

“By George /” said Sam Paley, leaning 
forward to get a better view. 

Tom almost fell over his chair backward 
turning around. Then he ran into the parlor 
and sat down on the floor in front of the 
tree. 

“Gee! but that is beautiful!” said he, and 

. n 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


added, regretfully, “Oh-h, I wish the Bobbin 
had got here!” 

They had not seen the Christmas tree 
illuminated before. Now the parlor had been 
darkened, save for the glow of the hearth 
fire, and all the colored lights on the ever- 
green branches had been set aglow. There 
were the gorgeous parrakeets, the brown 
monkey, the bluebird, the striped tiger, and 
the spotted glass leopard. There was the 
golden canary, perched high and secure from 
the fell designs of the purple cat. The yellow 
lion and the snowy lamb were couchant on 
the same bough in truly scriptural fashion. 
Probably the latter would have been given 
a safer situation had not Tom mistaken him, 
in his unilluminated state, for a dog. There 
were scores of them and they all glowed most 
merrily, totally indifferent, if appearances 
counted for anything, to the drenching they 
were getting from the shower of silvery arti- 
ficial rain. The snow on the moss beneath 
the tree glittered and scintillated so frostily 
that it made you cold to look at it. 

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ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


“Ah-uh!” said Tom once more, with a 
falling inflection, indicative of rapt and in- 
expressible admiration. Mr. Fraser rubbed 
his hands together and watched the boy 
with a glowing smile. 

At this point Sam Paley arose and, totally 
indifferent to the risk he ran from falling 
pendants, leaned forward and dipped a fresh 
glass of punch from the bowl. Then he began 
to recite a poem. He spoke earnestly, as 
though he had been addressing a jury, and 
he took the measures between rhymes like 
the dips in a toboggan-slide, pausing an 
instant on the first syllable of each line to 
make sure that the track was clear. 

“I fill this cup to one made up 
Of loveliness alone, 

A woman of her gentle sex 
The seeming paragon, 

To whom the better elements 
And kindly stars have given 
A form so fair that, like the air, 

’Tis less of earth than heaven. 

“Affections are as thoughts to her. 

The measure of her hours; 

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ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


Her feelings have the fragrancy, 

The freshness of young flowers. 

Her health! And would on earth there stood 
Some more of such a frame, 

That life might be all poetry 
And weariness a name. 

“Most beautiful woman I ever knew,” 
continued the old lawyer, with voice full of 
feeling and a most penetrating look at Mr. 
Fraser, “and the most joyous. The world 
only gets one like her in a lifetime. I’m 
convinced that her equal has never since 
appeared in this dreary town. And her voice 
— don’t you remember her voice, John? That 
was music. And her laughter. It wasn’t a 
giggle. No, it was a bubbling joy with a 
curious little catch in it, as though she was 
just a bit ashamed of being so beautiful and 
so happy. I can hear it yet. . . . Funny 
thing, John, that you didn’t fall in love with 
her, too.” 

“I was too busy, Sam,” interrupted Mr. 
Fraser; “and besides, you know, I never 
saw her. Now that I have, in a sense, made 
Sally Marboro’s acquaintance, and since I 
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ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


have, in these latter days, much greater 
leisure than formerly, perhaps — ” 

“Exactly. I knew you couldn’t long re- 
sist. Why, John, every young fellow about 
Colchester twenty-five years ago was in love 
with her. ’Twas as natural to love her as to 
breathe the fragrant air of a June morning.” 

Sam Paley sighed over the hopelessness 
of expressing the charm and worth of the 
mother of Robin the Bobbin. 

“I can see her now as plainly,” he went on, 
“as though she stood over there by the tree — 
come back to spend Christmas in her father’s 
house. Her eyes are shining as of old, but 
with a deeper, more wistful light. . . . Her 
lips are parted. She laughs softly — can’t 
you hear? — with the old catch, and holds out 
her arms toward the boy. Always fond of 
children. The jovial monks of Croyland, 
as they sat round the Christmas bowl, drank 
to the memory of many a dead saint; but I 
propose this toast, to-night, to the living 
memory of a lovely woman. Gentlemen, her 
health!” 


95 


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ROBIN THE BOBBIN 

Mr. Fraser got speedily to his feet, and 
the Professor raised himself slowly in his 
place. They drank — all but the old piano- 
tuner, whose trembling, twitching fingers 
overturned his cup. He was staring with 
sightless, blinking eyes toward the lighted 
tree in the front parlor, leaning with un- 
steady hands upon the table. Tom had 
turned to see what was going on. The Pro- 
fessor began to speak in curious, quivering 
voice: 

“I know I have no — no right to keep 
him. . . . But I can’t bear to let him go, 
now. I can’t, I can’t. . . . You — you 
wouldn’t ask it. Other women might be so 
cruel; but you could not. I know that. Not 
after — after leaving him with me so long. 
He was all the light I had. . . . Now it will 
be all dark — all dark. ...” 

The Professor dropped down, half in his 
chair, half on the table. Marcus and Mr. 
Fraser ran to his side. Sam Paley, entirely 
bereft of speech, absent-mindedly mopped 
his perspiring brow with a napkin. 

96 


ROBIN THE BOBBIN 


The servant, who seemed to feel that, if 
some of the punch could be conveyed safely 
to the old piano-tuner’s mouth, the result 
would be beneficial at this juncture, filled 
another cup, the first one having rolled to 
the floor. But Mr. Fraser motioned him 
aside. 

“You may go now, Marcus,” said he, 
gently, laying a hand on the Professor’s 
threadbare shoulder, “and put a good warm 
fire in the guest bedroom. Professor Gilikin 
and Tom are staying with us to-night. They 
will be staying — indefinitely.” 


THE END 























